Design + Obsessed: {Super Bowl Sunday: Dips & Sips}

Super Bowl Sunday is a wonderful day to gather with your friends, watch the game, and eat delicious food. Here I have two recipes for my favorite dips and two recipes for some thirst quenching sips!

Buffalo Chicken Dip

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups cooked and shredded chicken or 1 (12 ounce) can chunk chicken, drained

1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup Ranch dressing

1/2 cup Buffalo wing sauce (such as Frank’s Red Hot, not to be confused with their pepper sauce. Start with less if you want and add more to your desired hotness.)

3/4 cup shredded Cheddar cheese

blue cheese crumbles (optional)

Instructions:

Heat chicken and Buffalo sauce in a skillet over medium heat, until heated through. Make sure to break up the chicken so there are no big chunks. Stir in cream cheese and ranch dressing. Cook, stirring until well blended and warm. Mix in shredded cheese. Pour into a shallow dish or pie pan and sprinkle with blue cheese crumbles and microwave it until the cheese melts. We usually only sprinkle blue cheese on half of it for those who aren’t blue cheese fans. Serve with chips for dipping.

Warm Spinach Mascarpone Dip

Yields 2 cups
adapted from In a Cheesemaker's Kitchen by Allison Hooper

I think the original recipe lacked a crucial step - and that is to squeeze out all of the water from the frozen spinach. I like to serve the spinach dip with sliced french bread, celery sticks or warmed pita bread triangles. I've also used two small ramekins, each ramekin holding 1-cup of the spinach dip comfortably. Oh, I've also added freshly grated nutmeg to the original recipe too.

ingredients:

16 ounces frozen chopped spinach, defrosted1 small onion, minced2 tablespoons olive oil1/2 teaspoon kosher or sea salt (1/4 teaspoon table salt)1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg (freshly grated if you have)1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper powder8 ounces mascarpone cheese, softened at room temperature1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350F.

2. Take a handful of the defrosted spinach and squeeze and discard the water from the spinach. Squeeze as much of the water out as you can, you should get about a little less than a cup of spinach water.

3. Heat a saute pan over medium heat. When hot, add the olive oil and swirl to coat. Add the onions and saute until soft and translucent, about 4-5 minutes (take your time, if you do this over high heat, the onions will burn and become bitter). Add the spinach and saute until the spinach is warm, but still bright green about 30 seconds.

4. Season and toss with salt, pepper, nutmeg and cayenne. Turn off the heat and stir in the mascarpone cheese and the grated parmesan.

5. Pour into 2 small ramekins (or other oven-safe dish) and bake for 30 minutes until the cheese is bubbling around the edges. Serve warm with pita chips, bread or celery sticks.

Now for the cocktails!

Thyme Paloma Cocktail

4-6 sprigs fresh thyme (optional)
1 teaspoon sugar, superfine if possible
1 shot anejo tequila or mezcal
1 shot fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice
Juice of 1/2 a lime
Club soda

If using thyme, muddle it with the sugar in a cocktail shaker first–if not, just add the sugar to the shaker. Pour in tequila and juices and stir until sugar is dissolved. Strain into an ice-filled 6-ounce glass, then top off with club soda. Makes 1.